Look up story or stories in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Story or Stories may refer to:

• Story, a recounting of a sequence of events
• Narrative
• Story (surname)
• Story, or storey, a floor or level of a building
• Stories, colloquial, US American expression for soap operas

Media[link]

• Story (magazine), an American literary magazine published 1931–1961 and 1989–2000
• The Story with Dick Gordon, a radio interview program that debuted in 2006
• Story, one of the main characters in the 2006 film Lady in the Water
• Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting, a screenwriting guide by Robert McKee.

Music[link]

Artists

• The Story (UK band), an English psych-folk band 2002-present
• Stories (band), an early 1970s American rock group
• The Story (band), an early 1990s folk-rock duo

Albums

• Story (Amorphis album), compilation, 2000
• The Story (Brandi Carlile album), 2007
• Story (Eric Clapton album), compilation, 1991
• A Story, 1997 album by Yoko Ono, recorded in 1974
• Stories (Mayumi Iizuka album), 2008
• Stories (Addison Road album), 2010
• Stories (Gloria Gaynor album), 1980
• Stories (A Narada Artist Collection), 1998 compilation
• Stories (Randy Stonehill album), compilation
• The Story, 2006 album by Bizzy Bone
• Story, 1970 album by Honeybus

Songs

• "The Story" (song), 2007, by Brandi Carlile from her album The Story
• "Story" (Leddra Chapman song), 2009 single
• "Stories" (Boney M. song), 1990 single
• "Stories" (Therapy? song), 1995 single
• "Stories", a song from Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas
• "The Story", song by 30 Seconds to Mars from their album A Beautiful Lie
• "Story", B-side of the "Makes Me Wonder" single by Maroon 5

People with given name Story[link]

• Story Musgrave (born 1935), American doctor and astronaut
• Story Tweedie-Yates (born 1983), professional American tennis player

Places[link]

• Story, Indiana, United States
• Story, Wyoming, United States
• Story City, Iowa, United States
• Story County, Iowa, United States
• Fort Story, a sub-installation of the United States Navy and Little Creek Amphibious Base
• Story, Arkansas, United States

See also[link]

Wikiversity has learning materials about Story

• Storey (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

To comply with Wikipedia's lead section guidelines, the introduction of this article may need to be rewritten. Please discuss this issue on the talk page and read the layout guide to make sure the section will be inclusive of all essential details. (January 2012)

Brandi Carlile
Carlile performing in a Seattle music club during 2010.
Background information
Born	(1981-06-01) June 1, 1981 (age 31) Ravensdale, Washington, U.S.
Genres	Pop rock, alternative country, folk rock
Occupations	Musician, Songwriter
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, piano, banjo
Years active	2004–present
Labels	Columbia
Website	BrandiCarlile.com

Brandi Carlile (born June 1, 1981) is an American alternative country and folk rock singer-songwriter^[1] Her 2007 album The Story was produced by T-Bone Burnett.

Carlile is best known for the eponymous song from the The Story album. "The Story", the song, was used in a General Motors television commercial aired on American and Canadian television showcasing the car company's new line-up of more fuel-efficient cars.^[2] Due to the ad airing heavily during the 2008 Beijing Olympics,^[3] the song increased in downloads. The song was also used in the 2008 commercial for Super Bock, the most popular beer in Portugal, which led to the song reaching number 1 and the album The Story reaching number 4 on the Portuguese charts. "The Story" was also used in a montage of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno during the opening and closing of the Ohio State-Penn State football game on ABC on October 25, 2008, and was also used in a 2010 Tracker television commercial that aired on South African television. "The Story" is currently being used on Connecticut Channel 3 during promotions for the local news. Aside from "The Story" (specifically the cover version by Sara Ramirez), two other Carlile songs (this time from her third album titled Give Up the Ghost) were used for two more episodes of the TV series Grey's Anatomy.

Give Up the Ghost was released in 2009. Produced by Grammy Award-winning producer Rick Rubin, it featured a collaboration with Elton John on the song "Caroline" as well as Amy Ray, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench. In 2010, National Geographic Channel in Latin America chose the song "If There Was No You" from the album as a jingle to promote its series "Grandes Migraciones" (Great Migrations). Also that same year, during the 21st GLAAD Media Awards, Carlile was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for "Outstanding Music Artist" for the album.^[4]

In 2011, Carlile's album Live at Benaroya Hall with the Seattle Symphony reached number 14 on the Top Rock Albums chart. Carlile's next album, Bear Creek, releasing June 5, 2012, was produced by Trina Shoemaker.^[5]

Early life[link]

At age eight, Carlile performed the song "Tennessee Flat Top Box" with her mother^[6] and began playing the guitar and writing songs at age fifteen.^[7] At sixteen, Carlile was a backup singer for an Elvis impersonator.^[8] According to Carlile she was diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder as a teen and dropped out of school to pursue a music career.^[9]

Career[link]

Brandi Carlile performing in Birmingham, Alabama in 2006.

Carlile began her career performing in Seattle music clubs with the twin brothers Tim and Phil Hanseroth.^[10] Dave Matthews heard her perform at the 2003 Sasquatch! Music Festival and she joined Columbia Records in late 2004 and recorded her album Brandi Carlile the following year.

She was featured on Rolling Stone's list of "10 Artists to Watch in 2005"^[11] and in 2006, toured as an opening act for artists such as Ray LaMontagne, Jonny Lang, Hanson, Indigo Girls, The Fray, Chris Isaak, Tori Amos, and Shawn Colvin.^[12]

After two year of touring she recorded her album The Story.^[13] produced by T Bone Burnett.^[14]

In 2007 Carlile performed at the Borderline in London and as guest on Newton Faulkner's on five date UK tour in 2008. She was the opening act for Maroon 5 and OneRepublic during their Australia tour and^[15] in April 2008, she performed on the BBC2 show, Later... with Jools Holland.

Carlile's third studio album, Give Up the Ghost, was released in 2009 and debuted at #26 on the Billboard 200^[16][17][18] The album was produced by Jason Lader and contains a collaboration with Elton John entitled "Caroline".^[17] Carlile will release her fourth studio album, Bear Creek, on June 5th, 2012. The album will consist of 13 tracks and is produced entirely by Trina Shoemaker

She also provided backing vocals on the song "Restless Dream," featured on People and Things, the third studio album by American rock band Jack's Mannequin.

Charity activities[link]

Carlile worked with Reverb, a non-profit environmental organization, for her 2007 fall tour, as well as her 2009 Give Up the Ghost tour.^[19] She also performed with Ben Taylor in the Eden Presents…Alive in the World concert series for the benefit of Eden Florida, an organization that assists autistic children and adults.^[20]

In 2008, Carlile created The Looking Out Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization, in order to provide financial support to various causes that she believes in. The Looking Out Foundation has provided grants to Reverb, the American Diabetes Association, and Honor The Earth, as well as numerous other organizations.^[21] She also donates one dollar from every concert ticket sale to the foundation.^[22]

In an interview in September 2009, Carlile said: "We really work on a community basis and we do everything from helping people pay for funerals to environmental projects. The Looking Out Foundation is a helping hand to any cause we believe in."^[23]

In January 2010, Carlile's Looking Out Foundation partnered with the Seattle Police Department, the Indigo Girls, and two local Seattle self-defense studios to fund and support the Fight the Fear Campaign. The campaign was inspired by the assault on a local Seattle woman and her partner in their South Park home and provided free self-defense lessons to women in at-risk communities throughout 2010.^[24]

Also in 2010, Carlile contributed the track "The Heartache Can Wait" to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation: More Hope For The Holidays^[25] album alongside many other names such as Mike Love of The Beach Boys, Weezer, and Creedence Clearwater Revisited. Proceeds from this album go to benefit the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.^[25]

Personal life[link]

Carlile performing in April 2009 in Maine.

In a November 2002 interview, Carlile identified herself as a lesbian^[26] and later told the Los Angeles Times "I don't have to have a lot of formality around it...there were people before me who paved the way."^[27]

Carlile owns a pet Doberman Pinscher ^[28] and a horse^[29] and has AURYN tattoos on her shoulders.^[30]

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

• Brandi Carlile (2005)
• The Story (2007)
• Give Up the Ghost (2009)
• Live at Benaroya Hall with the Seattle Symphony (2011)^[31]
• Bear Creek (2012)

EP and demo[link]

• Room for Me (2000)
• Open Doors (2002)
• We're Growing Up (2003)
• Acoustic (2004)
• Live from Neumo's (2005)
• Live at Easy Street Records (2007)
• Rhapsody Originals (2007) – exclusive acoustic versions recorded for Rhapsody.com
• Ghost Demos (2009) – limited edition EP, distributed with the first 2000 pre-orders of Give Up the Ghost^[32]
• XOBC (2010)

Singles[link]

Awards[link]

In 2010, Brandi Carlile was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for "Outstanding Music Artist" for her album Give Up the Ghost during the 21st GLAAD Media Awards.^[33] Carlile was the winner of Seattle's City of Music Breakthrough Award for 2010.^[34]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Seabrook, John (11 October 2010). "The Talk of the Town: Dept. of Visitations: Peekers". The New Yorker 86 (31): 38. http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2010/10/11/101011ta_talk_seabrook. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Brandi Carlile

• Brandi Carlile official website
• Brandi Carlile official UK website
• Brandi Carlile on Myspace

Frankie Laine
Jimmy Crawford (left) and Frankie Laine, ca. 1947. Photography by William P. Gottlieb.
Background information
Birth name	Francesco Paolo LoVecchio
Born	(1913-03-30)March 30, 1913 Near West Side, Chicago
Died	February 6, 2007(2007-02-06) (aged 93) San Diego, California
Genres	Pop standards Jazz Rhythm and blues Gospel Folk Easy Listening Country
Years active	1937–2005
Labels	Mercury Philips Columbia Capitol ABC Amos Score
Website	Official website

Frankie Laine, born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio (March 30, 1913 - February 6, 2007), was a successful American singer, songwriter, and actor whose career spanned 75 years, from his first concerts in 1930 with a marathon dance company to his final performance of "That's My Desire" in 2005. Often billed as America's Number One Song Stylist, his other nicknames include Mr. Rhythm, Old Leather Lungs, and Mr. Steel Tonsils. His hits included "That's My Desire," "That Lucky Old Sun," "Mule Train," "Cry of the Wild Goose," "Jezebel," "High Noon," "I Believe," "Hey Joe!," "The Kid's Last Fight," "Cool Water," "Moonlight Gambler," "Love is a Golden Ring," "Rawhide," and "Lord, You Gave Me a Mountain."

He sang well-known theme songs for many movie Western soundtracks, including 3:10 To Yuma, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and Blazing Saddles, although he was not a country & western singer. Laine sang an eclectic variety of song styles and genres, stretching from big band crooning to pop, western-themed songs, gospel, rock, folk, jazz, and blues. He did not sing the soundtrack song for High Noon, which was sung by Tex Ritter, but his own version (with somewhat altered lyrics, omitting the name of the antagonist, Frank Miller) was the one that became a bigger hit, nor did he sing the theme to another show he is commonly associated with—Champion the Wonder Horse (sung by Mike Stewart)—but released his own, subsequently more popular version.

Laine's enduring popularity was illustrated in June 2011, when a TV-advertised compilation called "Hits" reached No. 16 on the British chart. The accomplishment was achieved nearly 50 years after his debut on the UK chart, more than half a century after his U.S. debut and four years after his death.^[1]

Style[link]

A clarion-voiced singer with lots of style, able to fill halls without a microphone, and one of the biggest hit-makers of late 1940s/early 1950s, Laine had more than 70 charted records, 21 gold records, and worldwide sales of over 100 million records.^[2] Originally a rhythm and blues influenced jazz singer, Laine excelled at virtually every music style, eventually expanding to such varied genres as popular standards, gospel, folk, country, western/Americana, rock 'n' roll, and the occasional novelty number. He was also known as Mr Rhythm for his driving jazzy style.

Laine was the first and biggest of a new breed of singers who rose to prominence in the post–World War II era. This new, raw, emotionally charged style seemed at the time to signal the end of the previous era's singing styles and was, indeed, a harbinger of the rock 'n' roll music that was to come. As music historian Jonny Whiteside wrote:

In the Hollywood clubs, a new breed of performers laid down a baffling hip array of new sounds ... Most important of all these, though, was Frankie Laine, a big lad with 'steel tonsils' who belted out torch blues while stomping his size twelve foot in joints like Billy Berg's, Club Hangover and the Bandbox. . . . Laine's intense vocal style owed nothing to Crosby, Sinatra, or Dick Haymes. Instead he drew from Billy Eckstine, Big Joe Turner, Jimmy Rushing, and with it Laine had sown the seeds from which an entire new perception and audience would grow. . . . Frank Sinatra represented perhaps the highest flowering of a quarter century tradition of crooning but suddenly found himself an anachronism. First Frankie Laine, then Tony Bennett, and now Johnnie (Ray), dubbed 'the Belters' and 'the Exciters,' came along with a brash vibrancy and vulgar beat that made the old bandstand routine which Frank meticulously perfected seem almost invalid.^[3]

In the words of Jazz critic Richard Grudens:

Frank's style was very innovative, which was why he had such difficulty with early acceptance. He would bend notes and sing about the chordal context of a note rather than to sing the note directly, and he stressed each rhythmic downbeat, which was different from the smooth balladeer of his time.^[4]

His 1946 recording of "That's My Desire" remains a landmark record signaling the end of both the dominance of the big bands and the crooning styles favored by contemporaries Dick Haymes and Frank Sinatra.^[5] Often called the first of the blue-eyed soul singers,^{[6][7][8][9][10]} Laine's style cleared the way for many artists who arose in the late 40s and early 50s, including Kay Starr, Tony Bennett, and Johnnie Ray.^[11]

I think that Frank probably was one of the forerunner of . . . blues, of . . . rock 'n' roll. A lot of singers who sing with a passionate demeanor—Frank was and is definitely that. I always used to love to mimic him with 'That's . .. my...desire.' And then later Johnnie Ray came along that made all of those kind of movements, but Frank had already done them. -- Patti Page^[12]

Throughout the 1950s, Laine enjoyed a second career singing the title songs over the opening credits of Hollywood films and television shows, including Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, 3:10 to Yuma, Bullwhip, and Rawhide. His rendition of the title song for Mel Brooks's 1974 hit movie Blazing Saddles won an Oscar nomination for Best Song, and on television, Laine's featured recording of "Rawhide" for the series of the same name became a popular theme song.

You can't categorize him. He's one of those singers that's not in one track. And yet and still I think that his records had more excitement and life into it. And I think that was his big selling point, that he was so full of energy. You know when you hear his records it was dynamite energy.-- Herb Jeffries^[13]

Biography[link]

Early years[link]

Frankie Laine was born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio on March 30, 1913, to Giovanni and Cresenzia LoVecchio (née Salerno). [His actual Cook County, Ill, birth Certificate, no. 14436, was already Americanized at the time of his birth, with his name written as "Frank Lovecchio," his mother as "Anna Salerno," and his father as "John Lovecchio," with the "V" lower case in each instance, except in the "Reported by" section with "John Lo Vecchio <father>" written in.^[14]] His parents had emigrated from Monreale, Sicily, to Chicago's "Little Italy," where his father worked at one time as the personal barber for gangster Al Capone. His family appears to have had several Mafia connections, and young Francesco was living with his grandfather when the latter was killed by members of a rival faction.

The eldest of eight children, he got his first taste of singing as a member of the choir in the Church of the Immaculate Conception's elementary school. He next attended Lane Technical High School, now known as Lane Technical College Prep High School, where he helped to develop his lung power and breath control by joining the track and field and basketball teams. He realized he wanted to be a singer when he missed time in school to see Al Jolson's current talking picture, "The Singing Fool." Jolson would later visit Laine when both were filming pictures in 1949, and at about this time, Jolson remarked that Laine was going to put all the other singers out of business.

Even in the 1920s, his vocal abilities were enough to get him noticed by a slightly older "in crowd" at his school, who began inviting him to parties and to local dance clubs, including Chicago's Merry Garden Ballroom. At 17, he sang before a crowd of 5,000 at The Merry Garden Ballroom to such applause that he ended up performing five encores on his first night. Laine was giving dance lessons for a charity ball at the Merry Garden when he was called to the bandstand to sing:

Soon I found myself on the main bandstand before this enormous crowd, Laine recalled. I was really nervous, but I started singing 'Beside an Open Fireplace,' a popular song of the day. It was a sentimental tune and the lyrics choked me up. When I got done, the tears were streaming down my cheeks and the ballroom became quiet. I was very nearsighted and couldn't see the audience. I thought that the people didn't like me.^[15]

Some of his other early influences during this period included Enrico Caruso, Carlo Buti, and especially Bessie Smith—a record of whose somehow wound up in his parents' collection:

I can still close my eyes and visualize its blue and purple label. It was a Bessie Smith recording of 'The Bleeding Hearted Blues,' with 'Midnight Blues' on the other side. The first time I laid the needle down on that record I felt cold chills and an indescribable excitement. It was my first exposure to jazz and the blues, although I had no idea at the time what to call those magical sounds. I just knew I had to hear more of them! — Frankie Laine^[16]

Another singer who influenced him at this time was falsetto crooner, Gene Austin. Laine worked after school at a drugstore that was situated across the street from a record store that continually played hit records by Gene Austin over their loud speakers. He would swab down the windows in time to Austin's songs. Many years later, Laine related the story to Austin when both were guests on the popular television variety show Shower of Stars. He would also co-star in a film, Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder, with Austin's daughter, Charlotte.

Shortly after graduating high school, Laine signed on as a member of The Merry Garden's marathon dance company and toured with them, working dance marathons during the Great Depression (setting the world record of 3,501 hours with partner Ruthie Smith at Atlantic City's Million Dollar Pier in 1932). Still billed as Frank LoVecchio, he would entertain the spectators during the fifteen minute breaks the dancers were given each hour. During his marathon days, he worked with several up-and-coming entertainers including Rose Marie, Red Skelton, and a 14-year old Anita O'Day, for whom he served as a mentor (as noted by Laine in a 1998 interview by David Miller).

Other artists whose styles began to influence Laine at this time were Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong (as a trumpet player), Billie Holiday, Mildred Bailey, and, later, Nat "King" Cole. Laine befriended Cole in Los Angeles, when the latter's career was just beginning to gain momentum. Cole recorded a song, It Only Happens Once, that fledgling songwriter Laine had composed. They remained close friends throughout the remainder of Cole's life, and Laine was one of the pall bearers at Cole's funeral.

His next big break came when he replaced Perry Como in the Freddy Carlone band in Cleveland in 1937; Como made a call to Carlone about Laine.^[17] Como was another life-long friend of Laine's, who once lent Laine the money to travel to a possible gig.^[18] Laine's rhythmic style was ill-suited to the sweet sounds of the Carlone band, and the two soon parted company. Success continued to elude Laine, and he spent the next 10 years "scuffling"; alternating between singing at small jazz clubs on both coasts and a series of jobs, including those of a bouncer, dance instructor, used car salesman, agent, synthetic leather factory worker, and machinist at a defense plant.^[17] It was while working at the defense plant during the Second World War that he first began writing songs ("It Only Happens Once" was written at the plant). Often homeless during his "scuffling" phases, he hit the lowest point of his career, when he was sleeping on a bench in Central Park.

I would sneak into hotel rooms and sleep on floor. In fact, I was bodily thrown out of 11 different New York hotels. I stayed in YMCAs and with anyone who would let me flop. Eventually I was down to my last four cents, and my bed became a roughened wooden bench in Central Park. I used my four pennies to buy four tiny Baby Ruth candy bars and rationed myself to one a day. — Frankie Laine^[19]

He changed his professional name to Frankie Laine in 1938, upon receiving a job singing for the New York City radio station WINS. The program director, Jack Coombs, thought that "LoVecchio" was "too foreign sounding, and too much of a mouthful for the studio announcers," so he Americanized it to "Lane." Frankie added the "i" to avoid confusion with a girl singer at the station who went by the name of Frances Lane. It was at this time that Laine got unknown songbird Helen O'Connell her job with the Jimmy Dorsey band. WINS, deciding that they no longer needed a jazz singer, dropped him. With the help of bandleader Jean Goldkette, he got a job with a sustainer (nonsponsored) radio show at NBC. As he was about to start, Germany attacked Poland and all sustainer broadcasts were pulled off the air in deference to the needs of the military.

Laine next found employment in a munitions plant, at a salary of $150.00 a week. He quit singing for what was perhaps the fifth or sixth time of his already long career. While working at the plant, he met a trio of girl singers, and became engaged to the lead singer. The group had been noticed by Johnny Mercer's Capitol Records, and convinced Laine to head out to Hollywood with them as their agent.

In 1943 he moved to California where he sang in the background of several films, including The Harvey Girls, and dubbed the singing voice for an actor in the Danny Kaye comedy The Kid from Brooklyn. It was in Los Angeles in 1944 that he met and befriended disc jockey Al Jarvis and composer/pianist Carl T. Fischer, the latter of whom was to be his songwriting partner, musical director, and piano accompanist until his death in 1954. Their songwriting collaborations included "I'd Give My Life," "Baby, Just For Me," "What Could Be Sweeter?," "Forever More," and the jazz standard "We'll Be Together Again."^[17]

The engagement fell through, with the songstresses breaking up with the loyal singer–manager when success for them seemed just around the corner. When Jarvis discovered how the girl group had mistreated Laine, he pulled their records from his show, in effect breaking their career.

When the war ended, Laine soon found himself "scuffling" again, and was eventually given a place to stay by Jarvis. Jarvis also did his best to help promote the struggling singer's career, and Laine soon had a small, regional following. In the meantime, Laine would make the rounds of the bigger jazz clubs, hoping that the featured band would call him up to perform a number with them. In late 1946, Hoagy Carmichael heard him singing at Billy Berg's club in Los Angeles, and this was when success finally arrived. Not knowing that Carmichael was in the audience, Laine sang the Carmichael-penned standard "Rockin' Chair" when Slim Gaillard called him up to the stage to sing. This eventually led to a contract with the newly established Mercury records. Laine and Carmichael would later collaborate on a song, "Put Yourself in My Place, Baby".

At Beltone and Atlas[link]

Laine cut his first record in 1944, for a fledgling company called "Beltone Records." The sides were called "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning", (an uptempo number not to be confused with the Frank Sinatra recording of the same name) and a wartime propaganda tune entitled "Brother, That's Liberty", though the records failed to make much of an impression. The label soon folded, and Laine was picked up by Atlas Records, a "race label" that initially hired him to imitate his friend Nat "King" Cole. Cole would occasionally "moonlight" for other labels, under pseudonyms, while under contract to "Capitol", and as he had previously recorded some sides for Atlas, they reasoned that fans would assume that "Frankie Laine" was yet another pseudonym for "Cole."

Laine cut his first two numbers for Atlas in the King mode, backed by r&b artist Johnny Moore's group, The Three Blazers which featured Charles Brown and Cole's guitarist (from "The King Cole Trio"), Oscar Moore. The ruse worked and the record sold moderately well, although limited to the "race" market. Laine cut the remainder of his songs for Atlas in his own style, including standards such as "Roses of Picardy" and "Moonlight in Vermont".

It was also at this time that he recorded a single for Mercury Records: "Pickle in the Middle with the Mustard on Top" and "I May Be Wrong (But I Think You're Wonderful)." He appears only as a character actor on the first side, which features the comedic singing of Artie Auerbach (a.k.a., "Mr. Kitzel") who was a featured player on the Jack Benny radio show. In it, Laine plays a peanut vendor at a ball game and can be heard shouting out lines like "It's a munchy, crunchy bag of lunchy!" The flip side features Laine, and is a jazzy version of an old standard done as a rhythm number. It was played by Laine's friend, disc jockey Al Jarvis, and gained the singer a small West Coast following.

"That's My Desire"[link]

Even after his discovery by Carmichael, Laine still was considered only an intermission act at Billy Berg's. His next big break came when he dusted off a fifteen-year old song that few people remembered in 1946, "That's My Desire". Laine had picked up the song from songstress June Hart a half a dozen years earlier, when he sang at the College Inn in Cleveland. He introduced "Desire" as a "new" song—meaning new to his repertoire at Berg's—but the audience mistook it for a new song that had just been written. He ended up singing it five times that night. After that, Frankie Laine quickly became the star attraction at Berg's, and record company executives took note.^[17]

Laine soon had patrons lining up to hear him sing "Desire"; among them was R&B artist Hadda Brooks, known for her boogie woogie piano playing. She listened to him every night, and eventually cut her own version of the song, which became a hit on the "harlem" charts. "I liked the way he did it" Brooks recalled; "he sings with soul, he sings the way he feels."^[20]

He was soon recording for the fledgling Mercury label, and "That's My Desire" was one of the songs cut in his first recording session there. It quickly took the #3 spot on the R&B charts, and listeners initially thought Laine was black. It also made it to the #4 spot on the Mainstream charts. Although it was quickly covered by many other artists, including Sammy Kaye who took it to the #2 spot, it was Laine's version that became the standard.

"Desire" became Frankie Laine's first Gold Record, and established him as a force in the music world. He had been over $7,000 in debt, on the day before he recorded this song."^[21] His first paycheck for royalties was over five times this amount. Laine paid off all of his debts except one — fellow singer Perry Como refused to let Laine pay him back, and would kid him about the money owed for years to come. The loan to Laine during the time when both men were still struggling singers was one of the few secrets Como kept from his wife, Roselle, who learned of it many years later.^[18] A series of hit singles quickly followed, including "Black and Blue", "Mam'selle", "Two Loves Have I", "Shine", "On the Sunny Side of the Street", "Monday Again", and many others.

At Mercury[link]

Laine's name was synonymous with jazz in the late 1940s when,^[22] accompanied by Carl Fischer and some of the best jazz men in the business, he was swinging standards like "By the River Sainte Marie", "Black and Blue", "Rockin' Chair", "West End Blues" "At the End of the Road", "Ain't That Just Like a Woman", "That Ain't Right", "Exactly Like You", "Shine" and "Sleepy Ol' River" on the Mercury label.

Laine enjoyed his greatest success after impresario Mitch Miller, who became the A&R man at Mercury in 1948, recognized a universal quality in Laine's voice which he began to exploit via a succession of chart-topping popular songs, often with a folk or western flavor.

Laine and Miller became a formidable hit-making team whose first collaboration, "That Lucky Old Sun", became the number one song in the country three weeks after its release. It was also Laine's fifth Gold Record. "That Lucky Old Sun" was something new to the musical scene in 1949: a folk spiritual which, as interpreted by Laine, became both an affirmation of faith and a working man's wish to bring his earthly sufferings to an end.

The song was knocked down to the number two position by Laine and Miller's second collaboration, "Mule Train" which proved an even bigger hit, making Laine the first artist to ever simultaneously hold the Number One and Two positions on the charts. "Mule Train", with its whip cracks and echo, has been cited as the first song to utilize an "aural texture" that "set the pattern for virtually the entire first decade of rock."^[23]

"Mule Train" represents a second direction in which Laine's music would be simultaneously heading under the guidance of Mitch Miller: as the voice of the great outdoors and/or of the American West. "Mule Train" is a slice of life in the mid-19th century West, wherein the contents of the packages being delivered by the mule train provide a snapshot into frontier life: "There's some cotton, thread and needles for the folks a-way up yonder/A shovel for a miner who left his home to wander/Some rheumatism pills for the settlers in the hills."

The Laine/Miller collaboration was one of the most fruitful in the history of popular music, producing a run of top forty hits that lasted into the early years of the rock 'n' roll era. Other Laine/Miller Mercury hits included "Dream a Little Dream of Me", "Stars and Stripes Forever", "The Cry of the Wild Goose", "Swamp Girl", "Satan Wears a Satin Gown", and "Music, Maestro Please".

"Shine", written in 1910 by Cecil Mack (R.C. McPherson), a ground-breaking African-American songwriter and publisher, was believed to be based on a real-life friend of vaudevillian George Walker, who was with him during the New York City race riots of 1900. The song takes what was then an ethnic slur, "shine", and turns it into what is essentially a badge of honor. It had been a hit for Laine's idol Louis Armstrong, who would cover several of Laine's hits as well.

"Satan Wears a Satin Gown" is the prototype of another recurring motif in Laine's oeuvre, the "Lorelei" or "Jezebel" song (both of which would be the titles of later Laine records). The song, which has a loosely structured melody that switches in tone and rhythm throughout, was pitched to Laine by a young song plugger, Tony Benedetto, who would later go on to achieve success as Tony Bennett. Laine recognized the younger singer's talent, and gave him encouragement.

Laine and Patti Page, circa 1950s.

"Swamp Girl" is another entry with the "Lorelei"/"Jezebel" motif in the Laine songbook. In this decidedly gothic tale of a ghostly female spirit who inhabits a metaphorical "swamp", the femme fatale attempts to lure the singer to his death, calling "Come to the deep where your sleep is without a dream." The swamp girl is voiced (in an obligato) by coloratura Loolie Jean Norman, who would later go on to provide a similar vocal for the theme song of the television series Star Trek. The coloratura contrasts well with Laine's rough, masculine voice, and disembodied female voices would continue to appear in the background of many of his records, to great effect.

"Cry of the Wild Goose" would be Laine's last number one hit on the American charts. It was written by folksinger Terry Gilkyson, of The Easy Riders fame. Gilkyson would write many more songs for Laine over the next decade, and he and The Easy Riders would back him on the hit single, "Love is a Golden Ring". "Cry of the Wild Goose" falls into the voice of the great outdoors category of Laine songs, with the opening line of its chorus, "My heart knows what the wild goose knows", becoming a part of the American lexicon.

Laine's influence on today's music can be clearly evidenced in his rendition of the Hoagy Carmichael standard, "Georgia on My Mind." Laine's slow, soulful version was a model for the iconic remake by Ray Charles a decade later. Charles would follow up "Georgia" with remakes of other Frankie Laine hits, including "Your Cheatin' Heart", and "That Lucky Old Sun." (Elvis Presley also remade several of Laine's hits, and his early influence on The Beatles has been well documented.)

In a recent interview, Mitch Miller described the basis of Laine's appeal:

He was my kind of guy. He was very dramatic in his singing ... and you must remember that in those days there were no videos so you had to depend on the image that the record made in the listener's ears. And that's why many fine artists were not good record sellers. For instance, Lena Horne. Fabulous artist but she never sold many records till that last album of hers. But she would always sell out the house no matter where she was. And there were others who sold a lot of records but couldn't get to first base in personal appearances, but Frankie had it both. — Mitch Miller^[12]

But the biggest label of all was Columbia Records, and in 1950 Mitch Miller left Mercury to embark upon his phenomenally successful career as the A&R man there. Laine's contract at Mercury would be up for renewal the following year, and Miller soon brought Laine to Columbia as well. Laine's contract with Columbia was the most lucrative in the industry until RCA bought Elvis Presley's contract five years later.^[24]

At Columbia[link]

Laine began recording for Columbia Records in 1951, where he immediately scored a double-sided hit with the single "Jezebel" (#2)/"Rose, Rose, I Love You" (#3). Other Laine hits from this period include "High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me)" (#5), "Jealousy (Jalousie)" (#3), "The Girl in the Wood" (#23), "When You're in Love" (#30), "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans" (with Jo Stafford) (#26), "Your Cheatin' Heart" (#18), "Granada" (#17), "Hey Joe!" (#6), "The Kid's Last Fight" (#20), "Cool Water", "Some Day" (#14), "A Woman in Love" (#19), "Love is a Golden Ring" (with The Easy Riders) (#10), and "Moonlight Gambler" (#3).

One of the signature songs of the early 1950s, "Jezebel" takes the "Lorelei" motif to its end, with Laine shouting "Jezebel!" at the woman who has destroyed him. In Laine's words, the song uses "flamenco rhythms to whip up an atmosphere of sexual frustration and hatred while a guy berated the woman who'd done him wrong."^[25]

"High Noon" was the theme song from the western motion picture starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. It had been sung by cowboy star Tex Ritter in the film, but it was Laine's recording that became the big hit. From this point on, Laine would sing the theme songs over the opening credits of many Hollywood and television westerns, becoming so identified with these title songs that Mel Brooks would hire him to sing the theme song for his classic cult film western spoof Blazing Saddles.

At this time, Laine had become more popular in the United Kingdom than in the USA, as many of his hit records in the UK were only minor hits in his native country. Songs like "The Gandy Dancer's Ball", "The Rock of Gibraltar", and "Answer Me, O Lord" were much bigger hits for him abroad. "Answer Me" would later provide the inspiration for Paul McCartney's composition "Yesterday". It was also there that he broke attendance records when appearing at the Palladium, and where he launched his first successful television series (with songstress Connie Haines.

Mitch Miller teamed Laine with many of Mercury and Columbia's biggest artists. He scored hits with Patti Page ("I Love You for That") at Mercury, Doris Day ("Sugarbush"), Jo Stafford ("Hey Good Lookin'", "Gambella (The Gambling Lady)", "Hambone", "Floatin' Down to Cotton Town", "Settin' the Woods on Fire", and many others), Jimmy Boyd ("Tell Me a Story", "The Little Boy and the Old Man"), the Four Lads ("Rain, Rain, Rain") and Johnnie Ray ("Up Above My Head (I Hear Music in the Air)").

Frankie scored a total of 39 hit records on the charts while at Columbia,^[26] and it is many of his songs from this period that are most readily associated with him. His Greatest Hits album, released in 1957, has been a perennial best seller that has never gone out of print. His songs at Columbia included everything from pop and jazz standards, novelties, gospel, spirituals, R&B numbers, country, western, folk, rock 'n' roll, calypso, foreign language, children's music, film and television themes, tangos, light operetta. His vocal style could range anywhere from shouting out lines to rhythm numbers to romantic ballads.

Both in collaboration with Jo Stafford and as a solo artist, Laine was one of the earliest, and most frequent, Columbia artists to bring country numbers into the mainstream. Late in his career, Laine would go on to record two straight country albums ("A Country Laine" and "The Nashville Connection") that would fully demonstrate his ability to inflect multiple levels of emotional nuances into a line or word. Many of his pop-country hits from the early 1950s featured the steel guitar playing of Speedy West (who played a custom built, 3-neck, 4-pedal model).

His duets with Doris Day were folk-pop adaptations of traditional South African folk songs, translated by folk singer Josef Marais. Marais would also provide Laine and Jo Stafford with a similar translation of a song which Stafford seems to have particularly disliked called "Chow Willy". Although "Sugarbush" brought Laine & Day a gold record, they would never team up again.

In 1953 he set two more records (this time on the UK charts): weeks at No 1 for a song ("I Believe", which held the number one spot for 18 weeks), and weeks at No 1 for an artist in a single year (27 weeks), when "Hey Joe!" and "Answer Me, O Lord" became number one hits as well). In spite of the popularity of rock 'n' roll artists like Elvis Presley and The Beatles, fifty-plus years later, both of Laine's records still hold.^[27]

In 1954, Laine gave a Royal Command Performance for Queen Elizabeth II which he cites as one of the highlights of his career. By the end of the decade, he remained far ahead of Elvis Presley as the most successful artist on the British charts. See the "Chart of All Time" for details. "I Believe" is listed as the second most popular song of all time on the British charts as well.^[28]

"I Believe" marked yet another direction for Laine's music, that of the spiritual. A devout Roman Catholic from childhood, Laine would continue to record songs of faith and inspiration throughout his career; beginning with his rocking gospel album with the Four Lads, which, along with the hit song "Rain, Rain, Rain", included renditions of such songs as "Remember Me", "Didn't He Moan", "I Feel Like My Time Ain't Long", and "I Hear the Angels Singing." Other Laine spirituals would include "My Friend", "In the Beginning", "Make Me a Child Again", "My God and I", and "Hey! Hey! Jesus."

Mr. Rhythm[link]

1953 was also the year that Laine recorded his first long playing album that was released, domestically, solely as an album (prior to this his albums had been compiled from previously released singles). The album was titled "Mr. Rhythm", as Laine was often known at that time, and featured many jazz-flavored, rhythm numbers similar in style to his work on the Mercury label. The album's songlist was made up of "Great American Songbook" standards. The tracks were "Some Day, Sweetheart", "A Hundred Years from Today", "Laughing at Life", "Lullaby in Rhythm", "Willow, Weep for Me", "My Ohio Home", "Judy" and "After You've Gone." The final number features a rare vocal duet with his accompanist/musical director, Carl Fischer. Paul Weston's orchestra provided the music.

Portrait of New Orleans[link]

Released as a 10" in 1953, and a 12" in 1954, this album features the talents of Laine, Jo Stafford and bandleader Paul Weston, a Tommy Dorsey alumnus who led one of the top bands of the 1950s, and was the husband of Stafford. The album was a mix of solo recordings and duets by the two stars, and of new and previously released material, including Stafford's hits single, "Make Love to Me", "Shrimp Boats", and "Jambalaya." Laine and Stafford duetted on "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans", "Floatin' Down to Cotton Town", and "Basin Street Blues"; and Laine soloed on "New Orleans" (not to be confused with "New Orleans" a.k.a. "The House of the Rising Sun" which Laine later recorded), "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?", and "When It's Sleepy Time Down South", along with a pair of cuts taken from his "Mr. Rhythm" album.

Jazz Spectacular[link]

This album featured not only jazz vocals by Laine, but jazz licks on trumpet by a former featured player in the Count Basie orchestra, Buck Clayton, and trombonists J. J. Johnson and Kai Winding, and piano by Sir Charles Thompson. The tracks included several songs that had long been a standard part of the Laine repertoire over the years: "Sposin'", "Baby, Baby, All the Time", and "Roses of Picardy" along with standards such as "Stars Fell on Alabama", "That Old Feeling", and "Taking a Chance on Love". The album proved popular with jazz and popular music fans, and was often cited by Laine as his personal favorite. An improvised tone is apparent throughout, with Laine at one point reminiscing with one of the musicians about the days they performed together at Billy Berg's.

Frankie Laine and the Four Lads[link]

The Four Lads (Bernie Toorish, Jimmy Arnold, Frank Busseri and Connie Codarini) had begun as a Canadian-based gospel group, who first gained fame as the backup singer on Johnnie Ray's early chart-busters ("Cry", "The Little White Cloud that Cried"), but garnered a following of their own with songs such as "The Mocking Bird", and "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)". The album produced one hit, "Rain! Rain! Rain!", along with tracks such as "Remember Me", "I Feel That My Time Ain't Long", and "Didn't He Moan". The last four tracks were recorded during a later session.

Rockin'[link]

One of Laine's most popular albums, this album reset several of his former hits in a driving, brassy orchestration by Paul Weston and his orchestra. Two of the remakes ("That Lucky Old Sun" and "We'll Be Together Again") have gone on to become the best-known versions of the songs (supplanting the original hit versions). Other songs on this album include: "Rockin' Chair", "By the River Sainte Marie", "Black and Blue", "Blue Turning Grey Over You", "Shine", and "West End Blues". The album's title is less a reference to rock and roll than a reference to the Duke Ellington song of that same name. Unlike Mitch Miller, Laine liked the new musical form known as "rock 'n' roll", and was anxious to try his hand at it.

With Michel Legrand[link]

French composer/arranger Michel Legrand teamed up with Laine to record a pair of albums in 1958. The first, "Foreign Affair", was built around the concept of recording the tracks in different languages: English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. The album produced a pair of international hits: "La Paloma" in Argentina, and "Não tem solucão" in Brazil. Other tracks included "Mona Lisa", "Mam'selle", "Torna a Sorriento", "Besame Mucho", and "Autumn Leaves."

Laine and Legrand teamed up for a second album of jazz standards, titled Reunion in Rhythm, with the vocals limiting themselves to English (and an occasional segue into French). Laine sang the complete lyrics (including the rarely reprised introductions) to such favorites as "Blue Moon", "Lover, Come Back to Me", "Marie", "September in the Rain", "Dream a Little Dream of Me" "I Would Do Most Anything for You", "Too Marvelous for Words", and "I Forget the Time". André Previn was the studio pianist on "I'm Confessin'," "Baby Just For Me," "You're Just The Kind," and "I Forget The Time."

With Frank Comstock[link]

Laine wrote the lyrics for the title song on another 1958 album, Torchin', which was also his first recorded in stereo. He was backed by trombonist Frank Comstock's orchestra, on a dozen classic torch songs including: "A Cottage for Sale", "I Cover the Waterfront", "You've Changed", "These Foolish Things", "I Got it Bad (And That Ain't Good)", "It's the Talk of the Town", and "Body and Soul". As with his Legrand album, he sings the entire lyric for each song.

A second collaboration with Comstock, also recorded in 1958, focused on intimacy. Conceived as a love letter to his second wife, actress Nan Grey (who appears on the cover with him), You Are My Love is easily Laine's most romantic work. His voice was once described (by a British disk jockey) as having "the virility of a goat and the delicacy of a flower petal,"^[29] and both these elements are well showcased here (particularly the delicate nuances). His recording of the wedding standard, "Because", exemplifies the singer's delicate mode at its most exquisite. He opens the song a cappella, after which a classical, acoustic guitar joins him, with the full orchestra gradually fading in and out before the guitar only climax. Also among the love ballads on this album are versions of: "I Married an Angel", "To My Wife", "Try a Little Tenderness", "Side by Side", and a version of "The Touch of Your Lips".

Balladeer[link]

Recorded in 1959, "Balladeer" was a folk-blues album. Laine had helped pioneer the folk music movement a full ten years earlier with his hit folk-pop records penned by Terry Gilkyson et al.. This album was orchestrated and arranged by Fred Katz (who'd brought Laine "Satan Wears a Satin Gown") and Frank DeVol. Laine and Katz collaborated on some of the new material, along with Lucy Drucker (who apparently inspired the "[Lucy D" in one of the songs). Other songs are by folk, country and blues artists such as Brownie McGhee, James A. Bland, Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter, and Hungarian composer Rudolf Friml. The closing track, "And Doesn't She Roll" (co-written by Laine), with its rhythmic counter-chorus in the background foretells Paul Simon's Graceland album two decades later.

Included are renditions of "Rocks and Gravel", "Careless Love", "Sixteen Tons", "The Jelly Coal Man", "On a Monday", "Lucy D" (a melody that sounds like the later Simon & Garfunkel hit, "Scarborough Fair", but depicts the murder of a beautiful young woman by her unrequited lover), "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny", "Stack of Blues", "Old Blue", "Cherry Red", and "New Orleans" (better known as "The House of the Rising Sun"), which would become a hit for the British rock group, The Animals a few years later.

John Williams arrangements[link]

Laine's last four albums at Columbia, Hell Bent for Leather, Deuces Wild, Call of the Wild, and Wanderlust were arranged by a young John Williams. Williams recently said the following words about Laine:

Frankie Laine was somebody that everybody knew. He was a kind of a household word like Frank Sinatra or Bobby Darin or Peggy Lee or Ella Fitzgerald — Frankie Laine was one of the great popular singers and stylists of that time. ... And his style ... he was one of those artists who had such a unique stamp — nobody sounded like he did. You could hear two notes and you knew who it was and you were right on the beam with it right away. And of course that defines a successful popular artist, at least at that time. These people were all uniquely individual and Frank was on the front rank of those people in his appeal to the public and his success and certainly in his identifiability. — John Williams.^[12]

Hell Bent For Leather[link]

This album of western classics by Laine established him as "a cowboy singer" for many young fans who grew up in the 1960s. The album's title is taken from a line in the popular television theme song Laine recorded for the popular Eric Fleming/Clint Eastwood western, Rawhide, which appears on the album. The tracks include stereo remakes of several of his biggest western/great outdoors hits: "The Cry of the Wild Goose", "Mule Train", "Gunfight at O.K. Corral", and "The 3:10 to Yuma", as well as new material, including the western rocker, "Wanted Man", and a musical narrative, "Bowie Knife".

Deuces Wild[link]

Laine's next album continued with the western theme (on several of the numbers), while following up on his last hit single, "Moonlight Gambler" (a stereo remake of which appears on the album). Most of the tracks of this album feature a gambling theme. "The Hard Way" is a story about a hard-luck case who gets killed by a cannon ball while fighting in the Civil War (for the Confederacy), only to wind up eternally shoveling coal in Hell. The second track is Stephen Foster's "Camptown Races" Other songs on this album include: "Luck Be a Lady" (from the hit musical Guys and Dolls), which Laine performed in an Off Broadway, touring company version of; "Get Rich Quick"; "Horses and Women" (which Laine may have supplied the lyrics to); "Deuces Wild", for which Laine provided the lyrics, and "Dead Man's Hand."

Call of the Wild[link]

This album continued to play up Chicago-born Frankie Laine's western image with songs such as "On the Trail" and "Tumbling Tumbleweeds", written by one of the founding members of The Sons of the Pioneers", Bob Nolan. The majority of its tracks focus more, however, on "the great outdoors", with titles such as: "Song of the Open Road", "North to Alaska"; "Beyond the Blue Horizon, "Rolling Stone", and "The New Frontier", which appears to show Laine's support of President John F. Kennedy. The arrangements on many of these songs have an almost classical feel to them, reflecting the classical training of John Williams, who would go on to conduct the Boston Pops for many years.

Wanderlust[link]

Wanderlust was Laine's final album with Columbia Records. "De Glory Road" is one of both Laine's personal favorites. Other songs on this album include (Ghost) "Riders in the Sky" and a swinging version of Sigmund Romberg's Serenade, from the operetta, The Student Prince. Also included on this album is a version of "I Let Her Go"; an uncensored version of a song that figured prominently in his nightclub act, "On the Road to Mandalay", based on the poem by Rudyard Kipling; and a classic version of "Wagon Wheels" which he'd been singing (though not recording) as far back as his days with the Merry Garden Ballroom marathon dance company in the early 1930s.

Laine had met with Columbia officials to renew his contract on the day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The meeting was canceled, and neither Laine nor Columbia pressed to reschedule it.

At Capitol, ABC, and Beyond[link]

In 1963 Frankie Laine left Columbia for Capitol Records, but his two years there only produced one album and a handful of singles (mostly of an inspirational nature). He continued performing regularly at this time, including a South African tour.

After switching to ABC Records in the late 1960s, he found himself at the top of the charts again, beginning with the first song he recorded, "I'll Take Care of Your Cares". Written as a waltz in the mid-1920s, "Cares" had become the unofficial theme song of the Las Vegas call girls, but was virtually unknown outside of the Strip. Laine recorded a swinging version that made it to number 39 on the national and number 2 on the adult contemporary charts. A string of hits followed including "Making Memories", "You Wanted Someone to Play With", "Laura (What's He Got That I Ain't Got)", "To Each His Own", "I Found You", and "Lord, You Gave Me A Mountain" (which was written by Marty Robbins). The last song was a number one hit on the adult contemporary chart (#24 national), and proved that Laine was as big a hit-maker as ever. His last single to hit the Billboard Hot 100 chart (peaking at #86 national) was "Dammit Isn't God's Last Name".

Seeking greater artistic freedom, Laine left ABC for the much smaller Amos Records, where he cut two albums in a modern, rock-influenced vein. The first album contained contemporary versions of his greatest hits, such as "Your Cheatin' Heart", "That Lucky Old Sun", "I Believe", "Jezebel", "Shine", and "Moonlight Gambler."^[30] His second album for Amos was called "A Brand New Day" and, along with the title song, was original material including "Mr. Bojangles", "Proud Mary", "Put Your Hand in the Hand", "My God and I", and "Talk About the Good Times." It is one of Frankie Laine's personal favorites.^[31]

Amos, which was soon to fold from lack of funds, could not adequately promote them at the time. However, they are still available through CD re-releases. After Amos folded, Laine started his own label, Score Records, which is still producing albums today.

Film and television[link]

Beginning in the late 1940s, Frankie Laine starred in over a half dozen backstage musicals, often playing himself; several of these were written and directed by a young Blake Edwards. The films were: "Make Believe Ballroom" - Columbia, 1949; "When You’re Smiling" - Columbia, 1950; "Sunny Side Of The Street" - Columbia, 1951; "Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder" - Columbia, 1952; "Bring Your Smile Along" - Columbia, 1955; "He Laughed Last" - Columbia, 1956; and "Meet Me in Las Vegas" - MGM, 1956. The latter, a big budget MGM musical starring Cyd Charisse, features Laine performing "Hell Hath No Fury".

His films were very popular in the United Kingdom, but failed to establish him as a movie star in the United States.

On television, he hosted three variety shows: The Frankie Laine Hour in 1950, The Frankie Laine Show (with Connie Haines) 1954-5, and Frankie Laine Time in 1955-6. The latter was a summer replacement for The Arthur Godfrey Show that received a Primetime Emmy for Best Male Singer. Frankie Laine Time featured such guest stars as Ella Fitzgerald, Johnnie Ray, Georgia Gibbs, The Four Lads, Cab Calloway, Patti Page, Eddie Heywood, Duke Ellington, Boris Karloff, Patti Andrews, Joni James, Shirley MacLaine, Gene Krupa, Teresa Brewer, Jack Teagarden and Polly Bergen.

He had a different sound, you know and he had such emotion and heart. And of course you recognized Frankie, just like Sinatra had that sound that you'd always recognize. That's what made for hit records, as well as being a great singer. But you have to have a real special sound that never changes. He could do it all ... but again, you always knew that it was Frankie Laine. — Connie Haines^[12]

He was a frequent guest star on various other shows of the time, including Shower of Stars, 'The Steve Allen Show', The Ed Sullivan Show, What's My Line?, This is Your Life, Bachelor Father, The Sinatra Show, The Walter Winchell Show, The Perry Como Show, The Garry Moore Show, Masquerade Party, The Mike Douglas Show, and American Bandstand.

In the 1960s, he continued appearing on variety shows such as Laugh-In, but took on several serious guest-starring roles in shows like Rawhide, Burke's Law, and Perry Mason. His theme song for Rawhide proved to be popular and helped make the show, which starred Eric Fleming and launched the career of Clint Eastwood, a hit. Other TV series for which Laine sang the theme song included Gunslinger, and Rango. In 1976, Laine recorded The Beatles song, "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" for the documentary All This and World War II.

Frankie Laine performed at three Academy Awards ceremonies: 1950 (Mule Train), 1960 (The Hanging Tree), and 1975 (Blazing Saddles). Only last two of these ceremonies were televised. In 1981, he performed a medley of his hits on American Bandstand's 30th Anniversary Special", where he received a standing ovation. Later appearances include Nashville Now, 1989 and My Music, 2006.

Social activism[link]

Along with opening the door for many R&B performers, Laine played a significant role in the civil rights movements of the 1950s and '60s. When Nat King Cole's television show was unable to get a sponsor, Laine crossed the color line, becoming the first white artist to appear as a guest (forgoing his usual salary of $10,000.00 as Cole's show only paid scale). Many other top white singers followed suit, including Tony Bennett and Rosemary Clooney, but Cole's show still could not get enough sponsors to continue.

In the following decade, Frankie Laine joined several African American artists who gave a free concert for Martin Luther King's supporters during their Selma to Montgomery marches on Washington, D.C.^[32]

Laine, who had a strong appreciation of African American music, went so far as to record at least two songs that have being black as their subject matter, "Shine" and Fats Waller's "Black and Blue". Both were recorded early in his career at Mercury, and helped to contribute to the initial confusion among fans about his race.

Laine was also active in many charities as well, including Meals on Wheels and The Salvation Army. Among his charitable works were a series of local benefit concerts and his having organized a nationwide drive to provide "Shoes for the Homeless". He donated a large portion of his time and talent to many San Diego charities and homeless shelters, as well as the Salvation Army and St. Vincent de Paul Village. He was also an emeritus member of the board of directors for the Mercy Hospital Foundation.

Later years[link]

His career slowed down a little in the 1980s due to triple and quadruple heart bypass surgeries, but he continued cutting albums, including Wheels Of A Dream (1998), Old Man Jazz (2002) and The Nashville Connection (2004).

In 1986, he recorded an album, Round Up with Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, which made it to the classical charts. Laine was reportedly pleased and amused^[33] having also placed songs on the country, rhythm and blues, and popular charts in his time.

He recorded his last song, "Taps/My Buddy", shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attack on America. The song was dedicated to the New York City firefighters, and Laine stipulated that profits from the song were to be donated, in perpetuity, to FDNY.

On June 12, 1996, he was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 27th Annual Songwriters’ Hall of Fame awards ceremony at the New York Sheraton. On his 80th birthday, the United States Congress declared him to be a national treasure.^[34] Then, a decade later on March 30, 2003, Frankie celebrated his 90th birthday, and several of his old pals, Herb Jeffries, Patti Page and Kay Starr were welcomed to his birthday bash in San Diego, as each of them gave him a helping hand in blowing out the candles.

Marriages[link]

Frankie Laine married actress Nan Grey (June 1950 - July 1993) and adopted her daughters from a previous marriage, Pam and Jan. Their forty-three year marriage lasted until her death. Frankie and Nan guest starred on a Nov. 18, 1960 episode of Rawhide: "Incident on the Road to Yesterday." They played long lost lovers. Following a three year engagement to Anita Craighead, the 86-year old singer married Marcia Ann Kline in June 1999. This marriage lasted for the remainder of his life.

Final appearance[link]

In 2005, he appeared on the PBS My Music special despite a recent stroke, performing That's My Desire, and received a standing ovation. It proved to be his swan song to the world of popular music.

Laine died of heart failure on February 6, 2007, at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego. In a prepared statement, Laine's family said, "He will be forever remembered for the beautiful music he brought into this world, his wit and sense of humor, along with the love he shared with so many."^[35] A memorial mass for the late singer was held February 12, at the Immaculata parish church on the campus of the University of San Diego. The following day, his ashes, along with those of his late wife, Nan Grey, were scattered over the Pacific Ocean.

Legacy[link]

While Laine's influence on popular music, rock and roll and soul is rarely acknowledged by rock historians, his early crossover success as a singer of "race music" not only helped pave the way for other white artists who sang in the black style, like Kay Starr, Johnnie Ray and Elvis Presley, but also helped to increase public acceptance for African-American artists as well. Artists inspired and/or influenced by Laine include Ray Charles, Bobby Darin, Lou Rawls, The Kalin Twins, The Beatles,^[36] Tom Jones, James Brown, Billy Fury, and many others.

Inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame 2008.

Cultural References[link]

In the "Mr. Neutron" episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus, Mr. Neutron (played by Graham Chapman) entreats Mrs. Scum (played by Terry Jones) to join him by saying, "I want you to be my helpmate—as Tarzan had his Jane, as Napoleon had his Josephine, as Frankie Laine had whoever he had."

Samples[link]

• of "Basin Street Blues" by Laine and Jo Stafford

Hit singles[link]

Discography[link]

Lyrics by Laine[link]

• It Ain't Gonna Be Like That (with Mel Tormé)
• It Only Happens Once (words and music by Laine)
• Put Yourself In My Place (with Hoagy Carmichael)
• We'll Be Together Again (with Carl T. Fischer)
• Our Dream (words and music)
• I Haven't the Heart (with Matt Dennis)
• I'd Give My Life (with Carl T. Fischer)
• What Could Be Sweeter? (with Carl T. Fischer)
• Baby, Just for Me (with Carl T. Fischer)
• Satan Wears a Satin Gown (with Jacques Wilson and Fred Katz)
• Don't Cry Little Children (with Norman Wallace)
• When You're In Love (with Carl T. Fischer)
• Only If We Love (with Al Lerner)
• Torchin (with Al Lerner)
• The Love of Loves (with Carl T. Fischer)
• Magnificent Obsession (with Fred Karger)
• Forever More (with Carl T. Fischer)
• You Are My Love (with Carl T. Fischer)
• My Little Love (with Carl Eugster)
• And Doesn't She Roll (with Jack Wilson and Fred Katz)
• God Bless This House (with Jack Wilson and Fred Katz)
• Horses and Women (words and music)
• Deuces Wild (with Mike Oatman and Ray Barr)
• Cow-Cow Boogie (with Don Raye, Gene DePaul and Benny Carter)
• The High Road (with Margaret Bristol and Leo Kempinski)
• The Moment of Truth (with Nell Western and Fred Katz)
• What Am I Here For? (with Duke Ellington)
• Pretty Little Princess (with Michael Nesmith)
• Please Forgive Me (with Larry Kusik and Eddie Snyder)
• Silver Kisses and Golden Love (with Robert Doyle)
• Allegra (with Matt Dennis and Dunham)
• Fresh out of tears (with Morgan)
• The Secret of Happiness (with Larry Kusik and Eddie Snyder)
• If I Did Not Believe in You (with Larry Kusik and Eddie Snyder)
• Going to Newport (with Larry Sanders)
• Forevermore (words and music)
• End Of Session Blues (words and music)
• Nan (words and music)

Filmography[link]

As Actor[link]

• Make Believe Ballroom - Columbia, 1949.
• When You’re Smiling - Columbia, 1950.
• Sunny Side of the Street - Columbia, 1951.
• Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder - Columbia, 1952.
• Bring Your Smile Along - Columbia, 1955.
• He Laughed Last - Columbia, 1956.
• Meet Me in Las Vegas - MGM, 1956.

Sang the Title Song[link]

• Blowing Wild - Warner, 1953.
• Man Without A Star - Universal, 1955.
• Strange Lady In Town - Warner, 1955.
• Gunfight at the O.K. Corral - Paramount, 1957.
• 3:10 to Yuma - Columbia, 1957.
• Bullwhip - Republic, 1958.
• Blazing Saddles - Warner/Crossbow, 1974.

Included in the Soundtrack[link]

• The Last Picture Show - sang "Rose, Rose, I Love You", Columbia, 1971.
• All This and World War II - sang "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", Deluxe, 1976.
• House Calls - sang "On the Sunny Side of the Street", Universal, 1978.
• Lemon Popsicle - sang "My Little One", 1978.
• Going Steady - sang "My Little One", 1980.
• Raging Bull - sang "That's My Desire", United Artists, 1980.
• Whore - sang "The Love of Loves", 1991.
• Chopper - sang "Don't Fence Me In", 2000.

Television[link]

• The Frankie Laine Hour - 1950.
• The Frankie Laine Show - 1954-5.
• Frankie Laine Time - 1955-6.
• Rawhide 1959-66 (sang the theme song)
• Gunslinger 1961 (sang the theme song)
• Rango 1967 (sang the theme song)
• The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo 1979-81 (sang the theme song for the first season)

Guest star appearances[link]

• Perry Mason - CBS, 1959.
• Make Room For Daddy - CBS, 1959.
• Rawhide - CBS, 1960.
• Bachelor Father - ABC, 1961.
• Burke's Law - ABC, 1963.
• Hee Haw - season 4 episodes 20 and 23 - syndication, 1973.

Biographies[link]

• That Lucky Old Son, co-authored with Joseph F. Laredo, Pathfinder Publishing, 1993.
• The Best Damn Trumpet Player: Memories of the Big Band Era and Beyond by Richard Grudens, Celebrity Profiles Publishing Co. (June 1, 1996). Includes a Foreword by Frankie Laine as well as a chapter (by Grudens) on his music.
• A three volume set of table-sized Frankie Laine biographies, That Lucky Old Sun, I Believe, Rawhide" by Todd Everett, accompany the Laine CD box-set collections put out by Bear Family Records.
• Reaching for a Star, by Craig Cronbaugh, AuthorHouse Publishing, 2005. Includes biographical information on Frankie Laine as well as detailing the author's meetings with him.

Video documentary[link]

Frankie Laine: An American Dreamer, 2003. Narrated by Lou Rawls. Included are interviews with Patti Page, Kay Starr, Pat Boone, Clint Eastwood, Tom Jones, Howard Keel, Connie Haines, John Williams, Michel Legrand, Mitch Miller, Ringo Starr, Dick Clark, and many others.

See also[link]

• List of best-selling music artists

References[link]

Constructs such as ibid., loc. cit. and idem are discouraged by Wikipedia's style guide for footnotes, as they are easily broken. Please improve this article by replacing them with named references (quick guide), or an abbreviated title. (July 2010)

Search for Cook County Births using "Family Search" found "Frank Lovecchio" born March 30, 1913 with no other hits. See following: http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#birthYear=1913;collectionId=1462519;surname=LoVecchio;searchType=standard;p=recordResults

External links[link]

• Official Frankie Laine Website
• Interview with Frankie Laine
• The Frankie Laine International Appreciation Society
• Frankie Laine at the Internet Movie Database
• Frankie Laine at the Latin Quarter, 1955 performance review
• Obituary from the Los Angeles Times
• Official & Complete Frankie Laine Covers Discography lyrics and charts info

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. It needs additional citations for verification. Tagged since March 2009. It reads like a news release, or is otherwise written in an overly promotional tone. Tagged since March 2010. It may contain wording that merely promotes the subject without imparting verifiable information. Tagged since March 2010.

Jimmy Boyd (January 9, 1939 – March 7, 2009) was an American singer, musician, and actor. He was best known for his recording of the novelty song "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus".

Early years[link]

James Boyd was born near McComb, Mississippi to Leslie and Winnie Boyd. His father was a farmer and picked cotton to help support his own family of 21 brothers and sisters. When Jimmy Boyd was 2 years old, his father put his wife and their two sons on a train to Riverside, California. With not enough money to buy tickets for himself, Leslie Boyd hitchhiked on freight trains to join his family.^{[citation needed]}

Jimmy Boyd's grandfather, William Boyd ("Fiddler Bill") played at dances and family gatherings in Mississippi. Fiddler Bill's children inherited his talent and they all sang or played musical instruments. Leslie played guitar and harmonica and began teaching Jimmy to play the guitar at 9 years old. Leslie had been a farmer when a drought hit and there were no more crops, so he picked cotton. He could pick over 600 pounds of cotton a day himself, and was paid 25 cents. Although there was no cotton in California to pick, this time they were determined to stay. Leslie got a menial job cleaning up construction sites, quickly becoming an accomplished finish carpenter.^{[citation needed]}

Leslie and Winnie Boyd occasionally took the children to a country and western dance, held in a barn in Colton, California, a few miles from Riverside. Jimmy's older brother Kenneth, about 9 years old at the time, went up to the bandstand and told the band leader, Texas Jim Lewis, that he should hear his little brother sing and play the guitar. Lewis called little seven-year-old Jimmy up to the stage to sing and play. After the dance was over, Lewis and the manager of a local radio station approached Boyd’s parents to ask if he could be a part of the hour-long radio show they planned to broadcast from the dance every Saturday night, offering to pay Boyd $50 for every appearance.

Leslie Boyd had cataracts in both eyes and required cataract surgery, a serious operation in the 1950s. The operation was performed in Los Angeles. While in L.A., they were told about auditions being held for the Al Jarvis Talent Show on KLAC-TV (now KCOP-TV). Boyd auditioned for Jarvis and appeared on the show that night. He won the contest, and the next day Jarvis and KLAC received numerous telegrams and telephone calls from viewers.^{[citation needed]}

Al Jarvis had a five-hour talk show every day on KLAC-TV with a few regulars on it, including Betty White, called Hollywood On Television. Jarvis immediately announced that Boyd would be a regular on the show. Several appearances singing and doing comedy skits with Frank Sinatra on CBS-TV's The Frank Sinatra Show soon followed.

"I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus"[link]

Boyd recorded the song "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" for Columbia Records, when he was 13. It became a hit, selling over two and a half million records in its first week's release and Boyd's name became known internationally. Columbia Records executives were baffled at the song's popularity. They had already presented Boyd with two gold records. (In the days before the Grammy Award existed, gold records were effectively the Grammys, and they were actually real gold). Boyd's record went to #1 on the charts again the following year at Christmas, and continues to sell as a Christmas song. It has reportedly sold over 60,000,000 copies since its initial release.

Boyd owned horses, so Columbia presented him with a silver mounted saddle. Inscribed in the silver plate on the back of the saddle were the words, "Presented by Columbia Records to Jimmy Boyd commemorating his 3,000,000 record of 'I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus'".

When first released, Boyd's record was banned in Boston by the Roman Catholic Church on the grounds it mixed sex with Christmas. Boyd made worldwide news when he went to Boston and met with the leaders of the Church to explain the song. The following Christmas the ban was lifted.

Between February 1953 and November 1954, Boyd made five appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. In that era, an appearance on Ed Sullivan's program (or even being introduced in the audience as was often the case of film stars and athletes), was considered by the entertainment industry and the public alike to be the pinnacle of success. In one of Boyd's five appearances, he replaced the scheduled popular singer of the time, Gisele MacKenzie. Boyd was in New York on his way to Montreal for a concert. After the show, Boyd was informed that MacKenzie had been bumped. He was so upset at the turn of events that he personally asked Sullivan to re-book MacKenzie (MacKenzie ultimately appeared twice on the show). In the same year and the years that followed Boyd made multiple appearances on Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall, The Doris Day Show, The Bing Crosby Show, The Bob Hope Show, the syndicated The Patti Page Show (1955), Dave Garroway, The Merv Griffin Show, The Tonight Show, Shindig, American Bandstand and other programs throughout the United States and Canada.

Boyd would record several more hit records: teaming up with Frankie Laine in the spring of 1953 on "Tell Me a Story" (written by Terry Gilkyson), which reached #4, and "The Little Boy And The Old Man" (#24), and with Rosemary Clooney that summer on "Dennis the Menace," which reached #25.

Relationship with Mitch Miller[link]

Boyd said that although he liked the songs that became hits for him, especially the duets with Frankie Laine, Rosemary Clooney, and Gayla Peevey, he never wanted to sing many of the novelty songs that Mitch Miller, the head of Artists and Repertoire of Columbia Records, gave him. As the head of A&R at Columbia, Mitch Miller was in charge of all the recording artists there, including Frank Sinatra. When Mitch Miller signed him to Columbia, Boyd's new roots were in country music. Boyd's first hit at Columbia under Miller, "God's Little Candles", was in the country field. At the time, 250,000 records was the mark of a country hit, but "God's Little Candles" nearly reached the million mark. Years later, Kris Kristofferson introduced himself to Boyd and told him he had borrowed the music from the bridge of "God's Little Candles" to write one of his songs. Boyd was a fan of Kristofferson and so overwhelmed that when he had introduced himself, he forgot to ask Kristofferson which song he used it in. Despite this success, Miller moved Boyd into the pop music genre since country music was an isolated field at the time and very small in the overall record-buying fan base.

Rock and roll was starting to change the industry, and Boyd wanted to sing rock music. Miller passionately hated rock and roll and publicly stated it was a passing fad. He forbade anyone with Columbia Records to record rock music. Although Boyd says he loved Miller like a father, he felt his era was passing; Boyd was later to be proven right.

After a number of novelty songs that Boyd did not like and that did not reach the top ten ("I Wanna Haircut With A Moon On Top", "I'll Stay In The House And Live In My Grandma's Kitchen", "Owl's Lullaby", etc.), Miller called Boyd and told him that he had a new song and would be arriving in Los Angeles to play it for him. Miller set up a meeting at the Beverly Hills Hotel with Percy Faith. The hotel provided a room with a piano for Faith to play the song, and Miller gave Boyd the lyrics to read. After reading the first lines of the song, Boyd, without hearing the music, told Miller he did not want to sing these kind of novelty songs anymore, and turned it down. Miller and Faith recorded the song with another Columbia artist named Jo Stafford. The opening lines were "Goodbye Joe, Me gotta go, Me-O My-O. Me gotta go pole the pirogue down the bayou." The song, "Jambalaya (On the Bayou)," went to number three on the Billboard charts. Ironically, the novelty song that Boyd declined to record had been written by country music legend Hank Williams.

Frank Sinatra declared that Miller's choices of songs had ruined his career, and he promptly switched over to Capitol Records, where he chose his own songs and began making hit records again. However, Boyd felt a great deal of loyalty to Miller. He did not follow through with his own wish to go to Memphis and record with Sam Phillips at his Sun Records, where the dawn of rock and roll was beginning with many of the new rock artists of the time. Instead, he concentrated more on movies and television, and finishing his education. In retrospect, Boyd said he wished that he had gone to Sun Records.

Other recordings[link]

In the mid-'60s Boyd had a top 5 record produced by one of his favorite artists Leon Russell and Snuffy Garrett, and engineered by another of his favorite artists J.J. Cale. The flip side, "Will I Cry", was written, engineered, had backup vocals and guitar instrumentals by J.J. Cale. Boyd stated that it was one of his all-time fun and favorite recording sessions and that he didn't care if it didn't sell a single record. The experience with Leon and J.J. was a "once in a lifetime high, and I don't mean drugs... necessarily"!

Another favorite recording session of Boyd's was a song written by Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees, "That's What I'll Give to You". Terry Melcher produced the session for Boyd on Vee-Jay Records. Vee-Jay was the first company to release all the early Beatles records in the United States. Before Boyd's single was released, Vee-Jay was sued by Capitol and lost all the royalties and rights to the Beatles. Vee-Jay Records went bankrupt. The song was recently released on Rhino Records. Herb Alpert had visited the session at Vee-Jay and liked it so much he asked Boyd and Melcher to record for his and Jerry Moss' label, A&M Records. While recording the album, the Manson murders occurred at a house in which Melcher had previously lived, prompting Melcher to abandon the project and go into seclusion. The album was never finished.

Bobby Darin wrote and produced a record, Made In The Shade, for Boyd. Although they had met briefly at different events, Boyd and Bobby became friends while working on different movies at Universal Studios. Unfortunately, Boyd stated, "It was released at the same time as Phil Spector's first amazing "Wall of Sound" recordings. Our record was more like a mound of sound and was lost somewhere behind the wall ... Bobby was one of the most talented people I've ever known," says Boyd. "Had he lived he would have sustained the same kind of legendary career that Sinatra had ... He could do it all. He could write and sing rock and roll, folk, jazz, or croon with Sinatra. And in each genre be as good or better than the best in each field. And if that wasn't enough, he was very witty and funny. If I didn't like him so much I could've hated him for being so talented."

Work in film, television and Las Vegas[link]

Boyd showed he had comedic talents in recurring roles in the television series Bachelor Father (as Howard Meechum, the boyfried of the Noreen Corcoran character), Date with the Angels, The Betty White Show, Broadside (in the role of Marion Botnik), and My Three Sons. He also appeared in a number of motion pictures, including Inherit the Wind (1960).

At the time, Boyd was the youngest entertainer ever allowed to appear in Las Vegas, starring at the famed Sands Hotel's "Copa Room" at age thirteen during Sinatra's "Rat Pack" era. On Boyd's opening night show he was applauded back onstage by the audience for multiple encores. With the audience still cheering and whistling, Sand's boss, Jack Entratter, standing backstage, caught Boyd and stopped him from going back on stage after his third encore. Entratter asked Boyd if he could please go back for only one encore during his performances, and explained that it was nearly two o'clock in the morning and that the hotel needed the people to go back to the casino and gamble. Boyd also appeared at the Golden Hotel in Reno, Nevada.

Boyd, along with his music, did stand-up comedy. He had the unique ability even at his young age to ad-lib relevant, clever one-liners that endeared him to his audiences. He played the theater circuit for several years that was popular at that time—including The Capital, Paramount, and Seville theaters in New York City, Chicago, Hartford, Montreal, and Toronto. Following entertainers such as Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Peggy Lee, Frankie Laine, Johnnie Ray and Eddie Fisher with his own show, he performed at 90,000 seat-plus venues such as Soldier Field, The Rubber Bowl, The Plantation, Red Rocks and others, in Chicago, Ohio, Colorado, Hawaii and Canada, along with hundreds of one-nighters on the road throughout the U.S., Canada, and England.

A seasoned performer at fourteen, he took time off to return to Hollywood to star in a horse racing movie called Racing Blood for 20th Century Fox. Boyd found Hollywood to be far less grueling than life on the road. At sixteen years of age he returned to Hollywood again to appear in The Second Greatest Sex with Jeanne Crain, George Nader, and Bert Lahr for Universal Pictures. Then it was on to New York to do a musical version of Tom Sawyer for The United States Steel Hour on CBS, with Florence Henderson as Becky. The next year he was asked back to do the title role in The United States Steel Hour's musical version of Huckleberry Finn, co-starring with Basil Rathbone and Jack Carson as the carpetbaggers.

Not wanting to go on the road again, and enjoying doing TV and movies, Boyd hung up his guitar at least temporarily and started having fun as a regular on comedy shows like Date With The Angels, Bachelor Father with John Forsythe, and Broadside. He starred with Mickey Rooney, Terry Moore, Dan Duryea and Yvette Mimieux in the film Platinum High School for MGM. Boyd was shooting Bachelor Father with Forsythe and simultaneously filming Inherit the Wind with Spencer Tracy, Gene Kelly and Fredric March for Universal Studios. Boyd co-starred on Broadway in Neil Simon's play Star Spangled Girl with George Hamilton and Deana Martin. Neil Simon's brother Danny Simon stated, "Initially Jimmy didn't want to do Star Spangled Girl. It meant he would have to leave L.A. for a year, and he wasn't sure he wanted to do the same show night after night. Neil and I took him out to dinner and coerced him into it. Jimmy got rave reviews, and was glad he did the play."

Personal life[link]

In 1960 Boyd married actress Yvonne Craig (TV's Batgirl). After a year of marriage, Boyd was drafted into the Army and was stationed in Texas. Separation proved unfortunate to his marriage, which ended in divorce in 1962. Boyd went to the Republic of Vietnam in 1965 with his own show for the USO. In February 1967 he also joined in Nancy Sinatra's USO trip to entertain American troops in South Vietnam.

Boyd married a second time in in 1980. He and Anne Forrey Boyd had a son together, but divorced in 1984. He remained single for the rest of his life.^[1] When asked, "What's the most exciting thing that ever happened to you?" his reply was, "The birth of my son."

Jimmy Boyd died of cancer in 2009 at the age of 70.^[2]

Awards[link]

For his contributions to the recording industry, Boyd has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Blvd.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Jimmy Boyd at the Internet Movie Database
• Jimmy Boyd at AllRovi

Taylor Swift
Swift performing during the Australian leg of her Speak Now Tour in 2012
Background information
Birth name	Taylor Alison Swift
Born	(1989-12-13) December 13, 1989 (age 22) Reading, Pennsylvania, United States
Genres	Country-pop, pop, country, alternative rock
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, actress
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, banjo, ukulele, piano
Years active	2006–present
Labels	Big Machine
Website	TaylorSwift.com

Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter and occasional actress. Raised in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, Swift moved to Nashville, Tennessee at the age of fourteen to pursue a career in country music. She signed to the independent label Big Machine Records and became the youngest songwriter ever hired by the Sony/ATV Music publishing house. The release of Swift's self-titled debut album in 2006 established her as a country music star. "Our Song", her third single, made her the youngest sole writer and singer of a number one song on the country chart. She received a Best New Artist nomination at the 50th Grammy Awards.

Swift's second album, Fearless, was released in late 2008. Buoyed by the chart success of the singles "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me", Fearless attracted a crossover audience and became the top-selling album of 2009. The record won four Grammy Awards, with Swift becoming the youngest ever Album of the Year winner. Fearless also received Album of the Year plaudits at the American Music Awards, Academy of Country Music Awards and Country Music Association Awards, making it the most awarded album in country music history. In 2010, Swift released her third album, Speak Now, which sold over one million copies in its first week. She then embarked on the 111-date Speak Now World Tour, which was attended by over 1.6 million fans and has become one of the highest-grossing concert tours of all time. The album's third single, "Mean", won two Grammy Awards for Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance. Swift is currently recording her fourth studio album, due for release in the fall of 2012.

Swift's work has earned her numerous accolades, including six Grammy Awards, ten AMAs, seven CMAs, six ACMs and 13 BMI Awards. She has sold over 22 million albums and 50 million song downloads worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. Swift has endorsement deals with Target, CoverGirl, Sony, Elizabeth Arden, Walmart and American Greetings. As a philanthropist, Swift has placed particular emphasis on arts education, children's literacy and natural disaster relief funds. In addition to her music career, Swift has appeared as an actress in the crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2009), the romantic comedy Valentine's Day (2010) and the animated film The Lorax (2012).

Early life[link]

Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989 in Reading, Pennsylvania.^[1] She is the daughter of Scott Swift, a Merrill Lynch financial adviser,^[2][3] and Andrea (née Gardner), a homemaker who previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive.^[1][4] Swift was named after singer James Taylor; her mother believed a gender-neutral name would help her forge a successful business career.^[5][6] She has a younger brother, Austin, who attends Vanderbilt University.^[7] She spent the early years of her life on an eleven-acre Christmas tree farm in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania and was educated at the fee-paying Wyndcroft School.^[8] When Swift was nine years old, the family moved to Wyomissing, Pennsylvania,^[9][10] where she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School.^[11] Swift spent her summers at her parent's vacation home in Stone Harbor, New Jersey^[12] and has described it as the place "where most of my childhood memories were formed".^[10]

Swift's first hobby was English horse riding. Her mother Andrea put her in a saddle when Swift was nine months old and she later competed in horse shows.^[13][14] Her family owned several Quarter horses and a Shetland pony.^[14] At the age of nine, Swift turned her attention to musical theatre and performed in Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions of Grease, Annie, Bye Bye Birdie and The Sound of Music.^[15][8] She travelled regularly to Broadway, New York for vocal and acting lessons. However, "after a few years of auditioning in New York and not getting anything”, Swift became interested in country music.^[16] She was inspired by LeAnn Rimes's Blue^[17] and her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, an opera singer.^[8] When she was in fourth grade, Swift won a national poetry contest with a three-page poem, "Monster in My Closet".^[18] At the age of eleven, after many attempts,^[19] Swift won a local talent competition by singing a rendition of LeAnn Rimes’s “Big Deal”, and was given the opportunity to appear as the opening act for Charlie Daniels at a Strausstown amphitheater.^[15] She spent her weekends performing at local festivals, fairs, coffeehouses, karaoke contests, garden clubs and Boy Scout meetings.^[20][4] This interest in country music isolated Swift from her middle school peers.^[21][22]

After watching a Behind the Music episode about Faith Hill,^[23] Swift recorded a demo of karaoke covers, and travelled with her mother to Nashville, Tennessee for spring break to leave a copy of the demo with record labels along Music Row. She received label rejections and realized that "everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking to myself, I need to figure out a way to be different".^[23] Swift began performing the "The Star Spangled Banner" at many sporting events, hoping she would be offered a recording contract. On one occasion, an eleven-year-old Swift high-fived Jay-Z after singing the national anthem at a 76ers game in Philadelphia.^[24] At the age of twelve, Swift was shown by a computer repairman how to play three chords on a guitar, inspiring her to write her first song, "Lucky You".^[25][26] She then recorded a second demo of original songs.^[15] In 2003, Swift and her parents began working with music manager Dan Dymtrow, after he spotted her singing at the US Open.^[27] Swift's second demo then caught the attention of RCA Records, who offered the eight-grader an artist development deal. In 2004, Swift modelled for Abercrombie and Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign and had an original song included in a Maybelline Cosmetics compilation CD.^[28]

When Swift was fourteen, her father transferred to the Nashville office of Merrill Lynch and the family relocated to a lake-shore house in Hendersonville, Tennessee.^[1] Swift has said her parents "presented it as a move to a nice community" rather than as her chance to become a star.^[29] Her mother has said, "We've always told her that this is not about putting food on our table or making our dreams come true."^[30] In Tennessee, Swift attended Hendersonville High School for her freshman and sophomore years.^[31] Later, to accommodate her touring schedule, Swift transferred to the Aaron Academy, a private Christian school which offered homeschooling services, and earned her high school diploma in 2008.^[32]

Music career[link]

[edit] 2004–08: Nashville songwriting sessions and Taylor Swift release

Swift moved to Nashville at the age of fourteen, having secured an artist development deal with RCA Records. Her musical influences included the Dixie Chicks, Shania Twain, LeAnn Rimes, Faith Hill,^[29] Tom Petty,^[33] Sheryl Crow,^[34] Melissa Etheridge, Pat Benatar,^[35] Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks,^[36] Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette.^[37] Swift had writing sessions with experienced songwriters such as Troy Verges, Brett Beavers, Brett James, Mac McAnally and the Warren Brothers,^[38][39] but eventually formed a lasting working relationship with Liz Rose.^[40] Swift saw Rose performing at an RCA songwriter event and suggested that they write together.^[41] They began meeting for two-hour writing sessions every Tuesday afternoon after school.^[42] Rose has said that the sessions were "some of the easiest I've ever done. Basically, I was just her editor. She'd write about what happened in school that day. She had such a clear vision of what she was trying to say. And she'd come in with the most incredible hooks".^[43][42] Swift also began recording demos with producer Nathan Chapman.^[41] After performing at a BMI Songwriter's Circle showcase at The Bitter End, New York,^[39] Swift became the youngest songwriter ever hired by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house.^[44]

Swift performing at the Maverick Saloon & Grill in Santa Maria, California in 2006

Swift left RCA Records when she was fifteeen; the company wanted her to record the work of other songwriters and wait until she was eighteen to release an album, but she felt ready to launch her career with her own material.^[45][19] She also parted ways with manager Dan Dymtrow, who later took legal action against Swift and her parents.^[28] At an industry showcase at Nashville's The Bluebird Café in 2005, Swift caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, a Dreamworks Records executive who was preparing to form his own independent record label, Big Machine Records.^[40] Swift was one of the new label's first signings.^[40] As an introduction to the country music business, Borchetta arranged for Swift to intern at the CMA Music Festival; she acted as the artist escort for Darryl Worley.^[46][47]

Swift began working on her self-titled debut album shortly after signing her record deal. After experimenting with veteran Nashville producers, Swift persuaded Big Machine to hire her demo producer Nathan Chapman.^[19] It was his first time to record a studio album but Swift felt they had the right "chemistry".^[19] In the end, Chapman produced all but one of the tracks on Taylor Swift.^[19] She has described the album as the "diary" of her early teens^[48] and most songs were written during her freshman year of high school.^[19] As a result, the songs describe coming of age experiences such as insecurity, young love, and teenage angst.^[19] She has said that, although "it sounds like I've had 500 boyfriends", a lot of the songs are observational.^[19] Swift wrote three of the album's songs alone, including two singles, and co-wrote the remaining eight with writers such as Liz Rose, Robert Ellis Orrall and Angelo Petraglia.^[49] Musically, the album has been described as "a mix of trad-country instruments and spry rock guitars".^[50]

Taylor Swift was released in October 2006 and received generally positive reviews from music critics.^[51] PopMatters hoped Swift would be "able to find an accomodation between the country tradition and her very obvious pop sensibilities, because Taylor Swift suggests she has much to offer".^[52] The New Yorker's Sasha Frere-Jones described Swift as a "prodigy". She noted that "Our Song" "stop[ed] me in my tracks" and praised the lyrics: “He’s got a one-hand feel on the steering wheel, the other on my heart".^[53] Country Weekly felt Swift demonstrated "an honesty, intelligence and idealism with which listeners of any age will be able to connect" and noted that "the more thoughtful material suggests a talent poised to last well past high school".^[54] AllMusic stated that, while listening to the album, it was "never in doubt" that "Swift is a talent to be reckoned with".^[55] Rolling Stone described Swift as "bright-eyed but remarkably seasoned", and admired "Our Song"'s "insanely hooky sing-song melody that's as Britney as it is Patsy".^[50]

Swift performing at Yahoo HQ in Sunnyvale, California in 2007

Big Machine Records was still in its infancy upon the release of the lead single "Tim McGraw" in June 2006, and Swift and her mother helped "stuff the CD singles into envelopes to send to radio".^[30] She spent much of 2006 promoting Taylor Swift in a radio tour and later commented, "Radio tours for most artists last six weeks. Mine lasted six months."^[19] Swift painted canvases (inspired by Jackson Pollock) to gift to radio station managers who played her music.^[56] She took part in "GAC Short Cuts", a part-documentary, part-music-video series designed to introduce her to country music fans.^[57][58] She also made television appearances on Good Morning America,^[59] The Megan Mullally Show,^[59] America's Got Talent,^[60] and TRL.^[61] Swift, a self-described "kid of the internet",^[62] used MySpace to build a fanbase. She wrote her own blog posts, left comments on her fans' accounts and personally respond to the messages that were sent to her.^[63] This was, at the time, "revolutionary in country music".^[64][57] Borchetta has said that his decision to sign a sixteen year old singer-songwriter initially raised eyebrows among his record industry peers^[57] but Swift tapped into a previously unknown market: teenage girls who listen to country music.^[1][57]

Following "Tim McGraw", four further singles were released throughout 2007 and 2008: "Teardrops on My Guitar", "Our Song", "Picture to Burn" and "Should've Said No". All were highly successful on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, with "Our Song" and "Should've Said No" both reaching number one. "Our Song" made Swift the youngest sole writer and singer of a number one country song.^[65] "Teardrops on My Guitar" became a minor pop hit; it reached number thirteen on the Billboard Hot 100.^[66][67] The album sold 39,000 copies during its first week^[68] and, as of March 2011, has sold over 5.5 million copies worldwide.^[69] Swift also released a holiday album, Sounds of the Season: The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection, in October 2007 and an EP, Beautiful Eyes, in July 2008.^[70][71]

Swift toured extensively in support of Taylor Swift. In addition to festival and theater dates, Swift performed as an opening act for several country artists' concert tours. She opened for Rascal Flatts on several dates in late 2006.^[59][72] In 2007, she served as the opening act on twenty dates for George Strait's 2007 United States tour,^[73] several dates on Kenny Chesney's tour^[74] and selected dates on Brad Paisley's Bonfires & Amplifiers Tour.^[75][76] Also in 2007, Swift appeared as the opening act on several dates for Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's joint Soul2Soul II Tour.^[77] Swift again opened for Flatts for their Still Feels Good Tour in 2008.^[78] In addition to performing her own material, Swift played covers of songs by Beyoncé and Rihanna.^[79] She conducted meet-and-greet sessions with fans before and after her concerts; these lasted for up to four hours.^[80][81]

In 2007, Swift and Alan Jackson were jointly named the Nashville Songwriters Association's "Songwriter/Artists of the Year". Swift was the youngest person ever to be honored with the title.^[82] She also won the Country Music Association’s Horizon Award for Best New Artist.^[83] In 2008, she won Top New Female Vocalist at the Academy of Country Music Awards^[84] and Favorite Country Female Artist at the American Music Awards.^[85] She won seven BMI Awards for songs featured on Taylor Swift.^[86] Swift was also nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award in the category of Best New Artist, but lost to Amy Winehouse.^[87]

[edit] 2008–10: Fearless release, MTV VMA incident and media backlash

Swift's second studio album, Fearless, was released in November 2008.^[88] She wrote seven of the album's songs alone, including two singles, and co-wrote the remaining six with songwriters Liz Rose, John Rich, Colbie Caillat and Hillary Lindsey.^[49] While Swift wrote many of the songs on tour, she made a conscious effort not to include "road songs": "As a 16-year-old girl, I could never relate to those songs about playing a different city every night. I want to write about feelings and love and the lack of love".^[89] She has said that the album title "means you’re afraid of a lot of things, but you jump anyway".^[90] She co-produced the album with Nathan Chapman.^[49] Musically, the record is characterized by "loud, lean guitars and rousing choruses", with the occasional "bit of fiddle and banjo tucked into the mix".^[91]

Swift performing at the 2010 Cavendish Beach Music Festival in Canada

Fearless received generally positive reviews from music critics.^[92] The New York Times described Swift as "one of pop's finest songwriters, country’s foremost pragmatist and more in touch with her inner life than most adults".^[93] The Village Voice felt she displayed "preternatural wisdom and inclusiveness", "masterfully avoiding the typical diarist's pitfalls of trite banality and pseudo-profound bullshit".^[94] Rolling Stone described her as "a songwriting savant with an intuitive gift for verse-chorus-bridge architecture" whose "squirmingly intimate and true" songs seemed to be "literally ripped from a suburban girl's diary".^[95] USA Today found it "a pleasure to hear a gifted teenager who sounds like a gifted teenager, rather than a mouthpiece for a bunch of older pros' collective notion of adolescent yearning."^[96] The New Yorker described it as an album "without a bad track", adding that "the album’s finest effort, "Fifteen", will feature in yearbook quotes for years".^[97] Entertainment Weekly noted that the album would appeal mainly to young girls – "she sounds like a real teen, not some manufactured vixen-Lolita" – but predicted it would be "exciting to watch her precocious talent grow".^[98] Music critic Robert Christgau described Swift as "an uncommonly-to-impossibly strong and gifted teenage girl".^[99]

Swift promoted Fearless heavily upon its release. An episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show was dedicated to the album launch^[57] and Swift appeared on many other chat shows.^[100] She communicated with fans using social media platforms such as twitter and personal video blogs.^[57] In October 2008, she appeared at the CMT Giants: Alan Jackson event, performing a cover of Jackson's "Drive (For Daddy Gene)".^[101] In November 2008, Swift took part in a joint, televised concert with rock band Def Leppard in Nashville.^[102][103] She performed her song "Fifteen" with Miley Cyrus at the 51st Grammy Awards in February 2009.^[104] In April 2009, she performed a cover of George Strait's "Run" at a televised ACM event honoring Strait as Artist of the Decade.^[105] Swift hosted and appeared as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live in November 2009.^[106] The lead single from the album, "Love Story", was released in September 2008 and became the second best-selling country single of all time, peaking at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.^[67][107] Four more singles were released throughout 2008 and 2009: "White Horse", "You Belong with Me", "Fifteen" and "Fearless". "You Belong with Me" was the album's highest-charting single, peaking at number two on the Billboard Hot 100.^[108] The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 Album Chart with sales of 592,304 and has since sold over 8.6 million copies worldwide.^[109][110] It was the top-selling album of 2009 and brought Swift much crossover success.^[111]

Swift carried out her first headlining tour from April 2009 to June 2010. As part of the 105-date Fearless Tour, Swift played 90 dates in North America, six dates in Europe, eight dates in Australia and one date in Asia.^[112] The stage show included multiple costume changes, dancers and a fairy-tale castle set.^[113] She sang a cover of Justin Timberlake's "What Goes Around... Comes Around" nightly, intertwined with her own "You're Not Sorry".^[114] Swift invited John Mayer, Faith Hill and Katy Perry to perform one-off duets with her at various dates during the North American tour.^{[115][116][117]} Justin Bieber, Kelly Pickler and Gloriana were the support acts.^[118] The tour was attended by more than 1.1 million fans and has grossed over $63 million.^[119] Taylor Swift: Journey to Fearless, a concert film, was aired on television and later released on DVD and Blu-ray.^[120] Also in 2009, Swift performed as a supporting act for Keith Urban.^[121]

In September 2009, Swift became the first country music artist to win an MTV Video Music Award when "You Belong with Me" was named Best Female Video.^[122] Her acceptance speech was interrupted by rapper Kanye West, who had been involved in a number of other award show incidents.^[123] West declared Beyoncé's video for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", nominated in the same category, to be "one of the best videos of all time." Many audience members booed West,^[124][125] prompting him to flip off the crowd.^[126][124] He then handed the microphone back to a speechless Swift.^[124][127] Backstage, Swift was seen "hysterically crying".^[124] According to Rolling Stone, when Swift's mother confronted West, he gave "a half-hearted apology in which he added he still thought Beyoncé's video was superior".^[128] West was removed from the event.^{[124][126][129]} When Beyoncé later won the award for Video of the Year, she invited Swift onstage to finish her speech.^[124][130] In the event's press room, Swift, who in 2008 had expressed a desire to sing a hook on a Kanye West rap song,^[131] was asked if she had "any hard feelings" towards West: "I don’t know him, and I’ve never met him, so... I don’t want to start anything because I had a great night tonight."^[128][132]

The incident received much media attention and inspired many Internet memes.^[133] President Barack Obama, in an "off the record" comment, called West a "jackass".^[134] Former US President Jimmy Carter said West's interruption was "completely uncalled for".^[135] West's behavior was criticized by celebrities, including Eminem, Snoop Dogg and Lady Gaga.^{[126][136][137][128]} The following day, West apologized for his verbal outburst both in a blog entry and during an appearance on The Jay Leno Show.^[124][125] He maintained that, while Swift was "very talented", "Beyoncé's video was the best of this decade!!!! ... I gave my awards to Outkast when they deserved it over me ... I'm not crazy y'all, I'm just real."^[138] Two days after the VMAs, Swift told an interviewer that West had not spoken to her since the ceremony.^[139] West then contacted her to offer a personal apology, which Swift accepted: "Kanye did call me, and he was very sincere in his apology."^[122][139] It has been said that the incident and subsequent media attention turned Swift into "a bona-fide mainstream celebrity".^[140]

Swift released a cover of Tom Petty's "American Girl", exclusively through Rhapsody in June 2009^[141] and continues to make her stage entrance to Petty's recording of the song.^[142] Swift contributed backing vocals to John Mayer's "Half of My Heart", featured on his fourth album, in November 2009.^[143] Mayer wrote the song as a tribute to Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac: "I thought, 'Well, if this is going to be my love letter to that style of music, who's going to be the Stevie Nicks in this equation?' And I thought, 'This Taylor Swift girl is going to be around for a long time."^[144] The song received positive reviews from music critics.^{[145][146][147]} Swift and Mayer performed the song live at Madison Square Garden, New York in December 2009.^[148] It was released as the album's third single in June 2010 and peaked at number 25 on the Billboard Hot 100.^[149] Swift collaborated with a number of other artists in 2008 and 2009. She co-wrote and recorded "Best Days of Your Life" with Kelly Pickler.^[150] She co-wrote two songs for the Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack – "You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home" and "Crazier" – with Martin Johnson and Robert Ellis Orrall, respectively.^[151] Swift also provided vocals for Boys Like Girls's "Two Is Better Than One", written by Martin Johnson.^{[152][153][154][155]} In January 2010, Swift contributed two songs – including "Today Was a Fairytale" – to the Valentine's Day soundtrack^[156] and recorded a cover of Better Than Ezra's "Breathless" for the Hope for Haiti Now album.^[157]

Swift at the 2010 Time 100 Gala, where she was honored

In November 2009, Swift became the youngest ever artist, and one of only six women, to be named Entertainer of the Year by the Country Music Association.^[158] Fearless also won the Association's Album of the Year award.^[158] The album won many other accolades and has become the most awarded album in country music history.^[159] Swift was the youngest ever artist to win the Academy of Country Music's Album of the Year honor.^[160] The American Music Awards honored Swift with Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album plaudits.^[161] She was awarded the Hal David Starlight Award by the Songwriters Hall of Fame^[162] and was named Songwriter/Artists of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Association.^[163] She won four BMI Awards.^[164] Billboard named her 2009's Artist of the Year.^[165] Swift was included in Time's annual list of the 100 Most Influential People in 2010.^[166]

In January 2010, Swift won four Grammy Awards for Album of the Year, Best Country Album, Best Female Country Vocal Performance and Best Country Song, from a total of eight nominations.^[167][168] She was the youngest ever artist to win Album of the Year.^[169] During the ceremony, Swift sang "Rhiannon" and "You Belong with Me" with Stevie Nicks. Her vocal performance received negative reviews and sparked a widespread media backlash.^[140][170] Her vocals were described variously as "badly off-key", "strikingly bad" and "incredibly wretched".^[171][172] While The New York Times found it "refreshing to see someone so gifted make the occasional flub" and described Swift as "the most important new pop star of the past few years",^[169] music critic Bob Lefsetz predicted that her career would end "overnight".^[173][174] In April 2010, Stevie Nicks, writing in Time, defended the singer: "Taylor reminds me of myself in her determination and her childlike nature. It's an innocence that's so special and so rare. This girl writes the songs that make the whole world sing, like Neil Diamond or Elton John ... The female rock-'n'-roll-country-pop songwriter is back, and her name is Taylor Swift. And it's women like her who are going to save the music business."^[166]

[edit] 2010–12: Speak Now release, 13-month world tour and collaborations

Swift released her third studio album, Speak Now, in October 2010.^[175] She wrote all twelve songs alone: "I'd get my best ideas at 3 a.m. in Arkansas and I didn't have a co-writer around."^[176] Album recording sessions took place in California, Tennessee and Kentucky over a two year period.^[177][178] Swift, who co-produced the record with longtime collaborator Nathan Chapman,^[179] has described it as "a collection of confessions—things I wish I had said when I was in the moment".^[180] She originally intended to call the album Enchanted but Scott Borchetta, her record label's CEO, felt the title did not reflect the album's more adult themes: "She had played me a bunch of the new songs. I looked at her and I'm like, 'Taylor, this record isn't about fairy tales and high school anymore. That's not where you're at'".^[181] Musically, it has been said that the album "expands beyond country-pop to border both alternative rock and dirty bubblegum pop".^[182]

Speak Now received generally positive reviews from music critics.^[183] USA Today felt that Swift's songwriting skills would remind listeners "what all the fuss was about in the first place", with the album capturing "the sweet ache of becoming an adult".^[184] The Los Angeles Times praised her ability as a songwriter to "hit on common experiences that feel unique".^[182] The New York Times described the album as savage, musically diverse and "excellent too, possibly her best".^[179] The Village Voice found that the album demanded "a true appreciation of Swift's talent, which is not confessional, but dramatic: Like a procession of country songwriters before her, she creates characters and situations—some from life—and finds potent ways to describe them."^[185] Entertainment Weekly noted that while love may confound her, "the art of expert songcraft clearly doesn't".^[186] Music critic John Christgau found the album's songs "overlong and overworked" but remarked that "they evince an effort that bears a remarkable resemblance to care—that is, to caring in the best, broadest, and most emotional sense".^[99] Rolling Stone described Swift as one of the best songwriters in "pop, rock or country": "Swift might be a clever Nashville pro who knows all the hitmaking tricks, but she's also a high-strung, hyper-romantic gal with a melodramatic streak the size of the Atchafalaya Swamp".^[187]

Swift performing during the Speak Now World Tour in July 2011

Swift carried out an extensive promotional campaign prior to Speak Now's release.^[188] She appeared on various talk shows and morning shows, and gave free mini-concerts in unusual locations, including an open-decker bus on Hollywood Boulevard and a departure lounge at JFK airport.^[189][190] She took part in a "guitar pull" alongside Kris Kristofferson, Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill and Lionel Ritchie at LA's Club Nokia; the musicians shared the stage and took turns introducing and playing acoutic versions of their songs to raise money for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.^[191][192] The album's lead single, "Mine", was released in August 2010 and five further singles were released throughout 2010 and 2011: "Back to December", "Mean", "The Story of Us", "Sparks Fly" and "Ours".^[193] Speak Now was a major commercial success, debuting at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart. Its sales of 1,047,000 copies made it the sixteenth album in United States history to sell one million copies in a single week.^[194] As of February 2012, Speak Now has sold over four million copies in the US^[195] and over 5.7 million copies worldwide.^[196][197] In her career, as of May 2012, Swift has sold over 22 million albums^[198] and 50 million digital tracks worldwide.^[199]

In September 2010, Kanye West's 2009 VMA interruption once again became newsworthy when West used his twitter account to apologize to Swift, referring to her as "just a lil girl with dreams like the rest of us": ""I wrote a song for Taylor Swift that's so beautiful and I want her to have it. If she won't take it then I'll perform it for her." Later that month, both artists performed at the 2010 VMAs. Swift sang "Innocent", a song widely believed to be about West, which The Washington Post has described as "a small masterpiece of passive aggressiveness, a vivisection dressed up as a peace offering".^[200] Music critics found Swift's performance overly serious and "petty".^[201][202] Speaking in November 2010, West said he failed to see what was "so arrogant about that moment" and described his actions as "selfless". He added that "if it was the other way around" and Swift were an established artist who had "made the video of her career, do you think she would have lost to a brand new artist? Hell no!"^[203][204] Also that month, he claimed that, "If I wasn't drunk, I would have been on stage longer ... Taylor never came to my defense at any interview. And rode the waves and rode it and rode it".^[205][206] At the Costume Institute Gala in May 2011, Swift and West came face-to-face on the red carpet. West was observed to hold "a hand out, and the two exchanged a studiedly casual, “down low” high five".^[1]